Your question implies a computer that had been running some form of Windows. It no longer boots, and you do not wish to continue using the previous Windows setup as the primary OS. I am assuming that you do not care to preserve the documents and other data on the hard drive, but are willing to re-initialize the drive and start 'fresh'.

Is this correct? It is possible that the previous OS and environment can be restored, and the computer used as before with Windows without switching to a whole new OS, which is an entirely different issue.

Because Puppy is very compact and efficient, it really can be fully functional while living in a rather small corner of your hard drive, unless the machine in question is rather old. If your hard drive is over a couple of gigabytes, you still have the option to create a NTFS or FAT32 partition for installing Windows.

- - -

The rest of your question implies that the computer will not boot from the hard drive. So, you need to see if it will boot from the CD-ROM drive or from a USB device. It may be necessary to adjust your BIOS settings to have the computer boot from the CD-ROM drive before the hard drive.

Once a Puppy Linux LiveCD had booted your computer, you can actually mount and access your previously-dead hard drive to see its files. You may even be able to install GRUB to the hard drive so it can initiate the boot-up and start Windows. Puppy Linux, or any other LiveCD boot-up does not need the hard drive at all, so it's good for rescuing non-booting hard drive data.

So, do you want to rescue your non-booting PC, or do you want to do a complete re-working of the computer with Puppy? That will determine what you do next.

Do i need to do anything before i burn puppy to a cd for example use an error checker like when i downloaded ubuntu before

Yes, run a md5sum check.
The md5sum is a downloadable item as well as well as the corresponding ISO._________________Time savers:
Find packages in a snap and install using Puppy Package Manager (Menu).
Consult Wikka
Use peppyy's puppysearch

Do i need to do anything before i burn puppy to a cd for example use an error checker like when i downloaded ubuntu before

Yes, run a md5sum check.
The md5sum is a downloadable item as well as well as the corresponding ISO.

cheers thankyou, ive used md5sum to do the checksum bit and i cant find the md5 so i can compare it using the checker, the program created a notepad file and im guessing i find the checksum in that right,

Just a couple of comments for someone to add.
If playing around with partitions/repartitioning - make a small swap partition at the same time.
If intending to adopt the FULL installation option, the new partition needs to be formatted before running the PUI.
Probably also mention somewhere about using pfix=ram boot parameter.
Maybe it isn't made entirely clear that a FULL install actually decompresses the files (only that the word 'compress' wasn't invoked - something that will be well understood by SuperStor/Doublespace refugees).
Possibly scope for a brief outline of the advantages and disadvantages of FULL & FRUGAL based on available resources and operator intentions?

Open the Live CD and look at the contents. You will see that the complete operating system is contained in just four compressed files. They are vmlinuz, initrd.gz, pupxxx.sfs and zdrvxxx.sfs. All you need to know for now is that the first two files contain the code that Puppy uses to get itself started. The third file contains the application software like word processors and web browsers. The fourth file contains hardware drivers.

I think it's time to update this section to highlight the fact that Puppy 4.XX series only has 3 compressed files, and zdrvxxx.sfs has been incorporated into pupxxx.sfs as well.

Do i need to do anything before i burn puppy to a cd for example use an error checker like when i downloaded ubuntu before

Yes, run a md5sum check.
The md5sum is a downloadable item as well as well as the corresponding ISO.

cheers thankyou, ive used md5sum to do the checksum bit and i cant find the md5 so i can compare it using the checker, the program created a notepad file and im guessing i find the checksum in that right,

is what im asking detailed anywhere to save me asking

When you download the ISO there is a corresponding text file containing the md5 sum. You have to download that as well.
Once you run the md2check compare the results obtained to the one you downloaded.
If it matches, your download is ok._________________Time savers:
Find packages in a snap and install using Puppy Package Manager (Menu).
Consult Wikka
Use peppyy's puppysearch

After doing some more homework on the Puppy WIKI site, I found enough information to try again. I was successful in getting it to install to the hard drive although it took a couple attempts. I realized I needed to go through Puppy Universal Installer (PUI) to do more work. Then, I was able to go through the Grub Installer from the menu and after trying a couple of options, it worked.

When my computer boots up, it stops at a screen that shows:

Dos
Linux on ...
Install Grub...
Install Grub...

and some other verbage. Is there some way to bypass and have it directly go to the Linux option to finish booting? I always have to arrow down and hit enter. Not a big deal, but just curious...

Yours will not be exactly like this.
All you need to do is:
make sure the timeout line does not have a # at the start,
you could change the 30 to let's say 5 (that's the time in seconds, before it boots the default entry).

For the default, set that to 1 (that means the second item listed, in your case: Linux on ... ),
again make sure it is uncommented (remove the #, if there is one at the start of that line)

Remember to save your changes.
Next time you boot up, it should go to the Linux Desktop without any intervention from you.

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